


Night

by kappamaki33



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-10
Updated: 2010-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:19:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kappamaki33/pseuds/kappamaki33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."-Peter Ustinov</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night

**Author's Note:**

> Based on trovia's prompt: "Gaeta and Narcho, post-Collaborators."

  
For some reason, nights on New Caprica always seem unnaturally dark. It isn’t just the nebula that veils the stars and was supposed to block the Cylons sensors but hadn’t protected them in the end. It’s something in the air itself that gives night not only a color but a feeling, a heavy weight on his chest. Felix is walking down a street in the middle of the night, groping his way along the row of tents, when something shatters against the back of his head. The next thing he knows, he is coughing and spluttering with his face pressed into the dirt, at least two booted feet kicking him in the side, hands yanking his arms tight behind his back…

…Felix is in a dark corridor of _Galactica_, surprised at how lost he feels in the place he’d called home for so many years. He hears the footsteps behind him but doesn’t think anything of them until it’s too late, until there’s a punch to his gut and a rag rammed down his throat and a bag over his head…

“Gaeta!”

They’d pushed the gag down too far. He is choking, but that doesn’t stop him from fighting, lashing out at anyone he can reach, struggling against them when they wrestle him to the ground and hold his arms down as ropes bite into his wrists…

“Stop it! Gaeta, it’s me!” Felix’s eyes focused. He was in his bunk on Galactica, and Narcho was over him, pinning Felix’s arms to the bed and sitting on his legs. Felix noticed that both of them were panting. “Now, if I let go of you, are you gonna be good and not take another swing at me?”

Felix gulped and nodded.

“All right, then.” Narcho released his grip and slid out of Felix’s rack. “Frak, you must’ve driven your old rackmates crazy, with night terrors like that.”

It was then that Felix remembered the Pegasus was gone, so Pegasus pilots and crew had been assigned to any available racks, regardless of whether they were pilots or CIC officers. Mercifully, Felix and Narcho were the only ones in their bunkroom at the time.

“I...don’t have night terrors,” Felix gasped. “I’ve always been a very sound sleeper. Just a…bad dream.”

“If you say so,” Narcho muttered, clearly not convinced.

Narcho had one foot on the ladder to the upper bunk when Felix asked, “If you thought I was having night terrors…aren’t you not supposed to wake up people with night terrors in the middle of an episode?”

Narcho hung from the ladder and shrugged with his free arm. “I couldn’t sleep with you screaming like that. Didn’t much matter why you were doing it. Either way, it was loud enough to wake the dead.”

Narcho continued up the ladder, and Felix watched the mattress above him shift and creak as Narcho swung himself into his bed.

“Hey, Narcho?” Felix called up.

“What?” Narcho said, his voice partially muffled by his pillow.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anybody about…that.”

“Don’t know how much good that’s gonna do, since half the deck probably heard you, but hell, I’ve got no reason to tell anybody.”

“Thanks, Narcho.”

“One thing, though,” Narcho said. Felix cringed but braced himself for the worst. The only question was whether Narcho was going to ask about the dream or about what New Caprica was like. “I have a name, not just a callsign. It’s Noel.”

Felix breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes. “Thanks, Noel.”


End file.
